Also available on Blu-ray

Rossini wrote L’equivoco stravagante (‘The Curious Misunderstanding’), his first full-length opera, when he was only 19 years old. As its title suggests, the plot of this dramma giocoso offers a panoply of absurdist stagecraft with one character being led to believe that the work’s heroine is in fact a castrato trying to avoid military service. Full of his trademark buffo humour, melodious and musically buoyant, the opera ran foul of the censors and was swiftly banned, which accounts for its rarity in performances and recordings. The new edition of the score used in this production corrects numerous previous errors.

Gioachino Rossini was summoned to Paris in 1824 to breathe new life into it's opera culture, and one of his most exciting innovations in this period was the creation of an entirely new genre of opera comedy. The risqué tale of Le Comte Ory had it's origins in vaudeville theatre and is based on the story of a villainous Count who attempts the seduction of Countess Adele as she awaits the return of her husband from the Crusades. 'Le Comte Ory' is the last of Rossini's comic operas, making full use of the libretto's farcical disguises and humor in one of his most colorfully orchestrated scores. This production, staged by Linda Mallik, features the Malmo Opera Orchestra and Chorus with world renowned soloists Leonardo Ferrando as Count Ory and Erika Miklosa as Countess Adele. Linda Mallik made her directorial debut in 2012 and received unanimous praise in the Swedish and international press, making her one of the most sought-after opera directors in Sweden. She has also staged 'Le Nozze di Figaro' at NorrlandsOperan, 'M/S Aurora' at the Berwaldhallen, 'Faust' and 'Mayday Payday' at Folkoperan in Stockholm, among others.

Gioachino Rossini
LA CAMBIALE DI MATRIMONIO

Tobia Mill – Paolo Bordogna
Fanny – Désirée Rancatore
Edoardo Milfort – Saimir Pirgu
Slook – Fabio Maria Capitanucci
Norton – Enrico Maria Marabelli
Clarina – Maria Gortsevskaya

Orchestra Haydn di Bolzano e Trento
Umberto Benedetti Michelangeli, conductor

Luigi Squarzina, stage director
Giovanni Agostinucci, sets and costumes

Filmed at Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro, Italy, August 2006

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: Dolby Digital 2.0 / Dolby Digital 5.0
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, Italian
Running time: 83 mins

What happens when the illustrious brass sections of the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic come together? The answer: The Philharmonic Brass. Making it's debut in Vienna's Musikverein in April 2023 the group will come together for recording, tours and education work. Comprising some of the best-known faces in the brass world from Berlin, Vienna and their friends, the group includes Sarah Willis, horn, Matthias Hofs, trumpet, or Paul Halwax, tuba. In February 2025, a new chapter began with the release of their first album on Supreme Classics: Italiana! Conducted by Maestro Riccardo Muti includes virtuoso arrangements of some of the best-known music including Verdi's Sinfonia di Nabucco, Rossini: Guillaume Tell - Overture and many more. We can now look forward to the ensemble's very first vinyl release and this exceptional album in an audiophile pressing by the renowned record manufacturer Pallas.

There is no want for recordings of this opera, and several are terrific: Jennifer Larmore/Raul Gimenez (Teldec); Horne/Alva (Opera d'Oro); Horne/Ramey (Erato); Baltsa/Raimondi (DG). But there's always room for another if it's good, and this new release, recorded at the 2008 Wildbad Rossini Festival, is excellent--and the least expensive of them all.

The star here is Lawrence Brownlee, the superb coloratura-lyric tenor who is giving Juan Diego Florez a run for his money. Warm of tone, stylish, accurate, rhythmically impeccable, fearless of high notes, involved with the text, and capable of marvelous patter (his first-act duet with Mustafa is a gem), Brownlee is the best Lindoro on disc. He is given both of his arias, which he dispatches nimbly and naturally.

Almost as fine (behind only Samuel Ramey) is Lorenzo Regazzo's Mustafa, here portrayed not as a buffoon but as a man smitten and naive to the wiles of women. The voice is appealing, dark, and round-toned, and he sings the coloratura and patter handily. I like that he doesn't growl and yelp like most basses do in this role; he may be a tyrannical character but he's in a position of power and distinction. The other two low men's voices are equally good: Giulio Mastrototaro's Haly is colorful and self-assured, and Bruno De Simone's is the best Taddeo on disc. He has the Rossini style down pat and sings with impeccable diction. He doesn't sound young, but that's hardly an issue. Both men are fine in ensembles.

Marianna Pizzolato is a far lighter mezzo than we normally hear in this role. I guess in keeping with underplaying Mustafa's foolishness, we avoid having an Isabella who sounds as if she could conquer Algiers singlehandedly--as, say, Baltsa and Horne could. Pizzolato is more in the Teresa Berganza class (although the voice is not as lovely); there are no booming low notes, but she commands the role on her own terms. There's little to argue with vocally--she has the technique down pat--and she has a good sense of fun as well. Ruth Gonzales as Mustafa's poor, fed-up wife, Elvira, can be slightly shrill but is mostly an excellent part of the ensemble, and mezzo Elsa Giannoulidou holds up her end as Zulma.

Alberto Zedda, an old hand who can occasionally be more scholarly than entertaining, is at his best: zippy tempos prevail (in fact, the finale to Act 1 is faster than I've ever heard it--a remarkable example of how well rehearsed the performance is); vocal lines are ornamented wisely (not the old fashioned way, with big high notes at the end of arias and scenes, but rather within the numbers themselves); and the opera comes across as charming.

This work can seem like hectoring and can be somewhat cruel; the choice of singers, tempos, and overall outlook makes it concentrate on the love story and the peculiarities of East meeting West. The Transylvania State Philharmonic Choir, Cluj is superb, singing at times at a whisper very accurately and offering real personality, and the Virtuosi Brunensis plays with vigor. The recording is fine, with voices always audible and well-balanced. If you're in need of a L'Italiana, this one will please you, particularly at half the price of the others; otherwise the Larmore/Teldec release is the best cast, overall.

--Robert Levine, ClassicsToday.com

It took me only a few seconds of listening to realise that there was likely to be something special about this recording. The Overture is so well known and often played, but here it comes up with the kind of invigorating freshness and brightness that brings an immediate grin to your face. Partly this is due to the use of the recent critical edition by Azio Corghi, whose changes of flute to piccolo in the allegro section, and detailed changes of phrasing throughout are entirely for the better, but it is due even more to the sheer rhythmic grace and suppleness of the playing. Alberto Zedda may have been nearly 80 when this recording was made but you would never guess it from the results. The orchestra sounds to be of an appropriate size for the work – not on historic instruments, I understand, but certainly historically informed - and it has been recorded in an acoustic which appropriately feels like the kind of medium-sized opera-house that Rossini would have expected.

Apart from Lawrence Brownlee the cast is not as starry as other versions of the work, but what is much more important is that the majority of the soloists are native speakers of Italian and all have clearly been thoroughly rehearsed together as an ensemble. Brownlee sings with grace and manliness - an uncommon quality in this role. Bruno de Simone and Lorenzo Regazzo have voices which are clearly distinguishable from each other and both are masters of Rossini’s writing for comic basses. The ladies are perhaps less individual, Marianna Pizzolato in particular lacking the kind of vivid characterisation that we find in recordings with, say, Marilyn Horne or Jennifer Larmore. Nonetheless she sings with great beauty where required, and at all times communicates the dramatic situation to the audience. It is indeed this quality of communication which makes the recording special. There is no sense of a routine run-through; instead there is the freshness of apparent new discovery.

This is wholly appropriate as L’Italiana in Algeri was written when the composer was only twenty-one. He had written nine operas before it but here reveals himself for the first time as a complete master of writing for the stage and one determined to make this clear to the audience. The special merit of this performance is that the performers are clearly working as an ensemble. It was recorded at live performances but the only significant adverse effects are very occasional moments of ragged ensemble and the brief applause at the end of some, but not all, numbers. On the other hand the very positive effect is the palpable sense of involvement in the performance from everyone involved.

Naxos have recorded a number of Rossini operas at the Wildbad Festival already, but this is by some way the best I have heard so far. No libretto is included with the set and that on their website is in Italian only. There is however a detailed and helpfully cued synopsis which is some consolation - although in a comic opera you really do need to be able to understand all the words to appreciate it as the composer intended.

-- John Sheppard, MusicWeb International

...Ferro conducts with a mixture of ease and ebullience... [T]he Ferro set is well cast, with Enzo Dara as an amusing Magnifico, the young Francisco Araiza ardent and freshvoiced as the Prince, and Lucia Valentini Terrani—the leading Cenerentola of her time—giving a reading that is ripe, meaningful and suitably virtuosic in its lustrous, dark-grained way.

-- Gramophone [6/1991]
reviewing the complete Cenerentola

Volume 3 of the complete Rossini symphonic overtures continues the pattern of placing rarities such as the lively student work, Grand'overtura 'obbligata a contrabasso,' and Matilde of Shabran, set in medieval Spain, alongside perennial hits such as the Italian Girl in Algiers and La Cenerentola (Cinderella), said to have been written in just three weeks. Classics Today described Volume 2 (8.570934) of this series as 'delightful... amazing... strongly recommended.'

"[This collection] shows Richard Stoltzman, with his succulent tone and infectious bravura (so easily displayed in the finale of the Weber and the very operatic Rossini Variations), at his best...One tends to think of Weber's concertos as being rather more than halfway between the classical and romantic traditions, here the romanticism is very much in the ascendent. But overall the performance of the F minor Concerto combines a lively impetus in the outer movements with warmth in the Adagio whilst the orchestra—notably the horns—add much to the listener's enjoyment."

-- Ivan March, Gramophone [10/1989]

On the occasion of it's 40th anniversary Carus has initiated a new series Carus Classics, featuring ten outstanding CD productions from the past library of recordings. This exclusive collection, designed by Friedrich Forssman and Cornelia Feyll, is presented in high-quality DigiPacs and each CD includes an extensive booklet. '... exemplary recording.' (New Classics, September 2005)

Claudio Abbado's collection of Rossini overtures is flecked with moments of special illumination... With Abbado, the difficult to manage Il Turco in Italia is a rare treat, Tancredi, in Philip Gossett's new revision, is a tour deforce and the liquid-toned cellos at the start of Guillaume Tell are nothing short of miraculous. Abbado's Scala di seta, too, wings into life, sweet and silken, like feathered Mercury.

-- Gramophone [8/1979, reviewing the LP release of the Rossini overtures]

This is not a particularly generous collection: it was originally published in 1983 but never previously issued in the UK. It shows Richard Stoltzman, with his succulent tone and infectious bravura (so easily displayed in the finale of the Weber and the very operatic Rossini Variations), at his best, while the Mozart Andante, if it is to be transcribed for clarinet, needs a lighter touch: here the rich, rather deliberate phrasing loses the music's simplicity and charm. In the Weber the orchestral tuttis are somewhat hefty for a group called the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, but this is primarily the effect of the resonant acoustics of the unnamed hall where the recording was made. One tends to think of Weber's concertos as being rather more than halfway between the classical and romantic traditions; here the romanticism is very much in the ascendent. But overall the performance of the F minor Concerto combines a lively impetus in the outer movements with warmth in the Adagio whilst the orchestra—notably the horns—add much to the listener's enjoyment.

-- Ivan March, Gramophone [10/1989, reviewing RCA 60035]

The Italian composer Gioachino Rossini is best known for his operas. Many of their overtures and arias were catchy tunes at the time and have remained so to this day. Although it is Rossini’s comic operas that are primarily performed today, more than half of his stage works are in fact based on serious themes. One veritable rarity is the stage work "Sigismondo", which premiered in 1814 at the famous Teatro La Fenice in Venice but was only ever rarely performed afterwards. Presumably, the story on which it was based had no appeal for the audience at that time, because musically, the work is hardly less impressive than the "Italian Girl in Algiers", written during the previous year, or the "Barber of Seville", which followed two years later. The subject of the opera is, however, based on a long tradition. Rossini shows his protagonist, the fictional King Sigismondo, in extreme states of mental distress. Confusion and insanity reveal inner feelings, and it is only delirium that finally brings the truth to light. This "madness opera" is highly topical, both in its subject matter and its musical language – after all, Rossini is among the top ten most-performed composers of our time. A concert performance of this little-known and unjustly neglected masterpiece was given at Munich’s Prinzregententheater on October 14, 2018 - in the original language, and by performers highly familiar with Rossini’s music, which seems so easy but is in fact extremely difficult to sing. This extraordinary opera event – a festival of singing that received tumultuous applause as well as great critical acclaim – is now being released on BR-KLASSIK as a live recording.

 

REVIEW:

 

It would appear at first glance that the release of this recording of one of Rossini’s more egregious operas has been primarily designed as a promotional exercise for the conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson. How else does one explain that hers is the only artist biography in the 36-page German-English booklet?

 

She is good. But the singers are good too: an exceptional cast to be assembled for a Sunday radio transmission. But that’s Germany for you, the one country in Europe which still has the desire and the wherewithal seriously to invest in opera.

 

Singing Rossini live under a skilled if sometimes hard-driving conductor is not without its perils, as is occasionally evident with the one soprano in the cast, the gifted Hera Hyesang Park, who sings the role of the exiled wife of the delusional Polish king Sigismondo. But she, too, generally acquits herself with distinction, not least in Aldimira’s striking Act 2 aria.

 

Sigismondo, an old-fashioned travesti role, is sung by Marianna Pizzolato. Both she and Kenneth Tarver as the king’s devious and sexually ambitious Prime Minister are class acts. It’s also good to hear the young Irish mezzo Rachel Kelly in the comprimario role of the minister’s sister, Anagilda.

 

Keri-Lynn Wilson — or Mrs Peter Gelb as one’s probably not allowed to call her — is an experienced conductor who has worked in leading houses across the world. Here the drive and authority of her conducting work wonders for the piece. I like the way she rescues the Overture from buffo banality by giving it a rumbustious, even dangerous feel. I also like the way the performance culminates in an electrifying account of the Act 2 quartet. Identifying and realising any work’s one true climax is a skill that eludes all too many stick-wavers.

 

Rossini wrote Sigismondo for Venice’s Teatro La Fenice in the autumn of 1814. He was 22 and on the cusp of a move to Naples and the second great phase of his career. The impresario of La Fenice warned him that the libretto wasn’t up to much and Rossini seems to have agreed. Still, he set to and came up with some vital and at times forward-looking music that had the singular merit of appeasing the first-night audience. Which is why it doesn’t perhaps matter that BR-Klassik has been negligent in its presentation—no text and translation, such as one has with Bongiovanni’s highly recommendable 1992 Rovigo theatre recording conducted by Richard Bonynge, nor the kind of track-by-track synopsis such as Naxos provides in its altogether less well-sung and less efficiently recorded 2016 Rossini in Wildbad performance.

 

 

– Gramophone